Days #3 and #4. Diving!

On both of these days, I went diving with my longtime friend Aaron, the owner of The Shekel blog.

It's been a long time since I was scuba diving. I used to do it once or twice a week, mostly in the swift currents and poor visibility of the icy cold St. Clair River. But that was years ago, and I found out much to my chagrin that I'm rusty and my vintage dive gear's pretty much worn out. (A local dive shop has some of the same gear that I currently use on display in their shop--as antique decorations!) My wetsuit is along ways from being warm any more. One of my regulator second stages leaks bad and my buoyancy compensator has a minor leak too. My tank is so old (manufactured in 1972) that no shop will re-fill it and my vintage gloves are a joke when it comes to keeping hands warm. But none of that gear owes me anything any more, not after years of hard river diving back in the day. I'm going to have to replace almost all of it.

The first day we went down to Portage Quarry in Ohio just for a refresher. Getting to the water's edge on one foot's a bit of a chore, but using the tank as a crutch, I was able to pull it off. I had to point out to Shekel-boy that he was taking so long getting geared up that I was overheating in my suit as I waited for him. He replied that of course it was taking longer as he had to put two fins on instead of one. Touche.

We submerged and went to play with the new Hansa jet airplane that the quarry owners put down there last year. It's a complete jet place, sitting on it's landing gear on the quarry floor in about 50 feet of water with the cargo area doors open for entry. I found out that my weights were both too heavy and poorly placed to accommodate my missing leg, and I was heavy and off-balance, causing me to work much harder than I should have. Adding to this was the initial awkwardness of trying to swim with one foot and fin and a much shorter, finless leg, and I soon began to require more air than I could draw through my old regulator. Realizing that I had a problem, I grabbed Aaron and headed up for the surface. After catching my breath and figuring out what the problems were, we went back down and this time, by taking it slower and focusing on developing a new kick rhythm, I was able to breathe, maintain my buoyancy (somewhat) and enjoy the rest of the time playing around the various cars, boats and other items dumped into the quarry for divers to play with. Regrettably I was too fatigued to try a second dive that day (that one leg deal is a hell of an aerobic workout) but we tried it again in Island Lake Recreation Area's Spring Mill Pond the next day. This time I had less weight and what I had was better positioned to help me with my balance and with the exception of my nearly blowing an ear out due to forgetting to take a Sudafed before diving which made it hard to clear my right ear on descent, it went very well indeed despite a severe storm that passed through while we were under water. (I have to wonder if the park staff there has any idea about how many of their picnic tables are down on the bottom of that silty pond.)

Special thanks to James at Sea the World dive shop (the shop formerly known as Don's Dive Shop back in my day) for the sterling customer service as he helped me get set up with some needed rental gear for our big dive on Day #6.